CHAPTER 11
Tally
The rain is quick, but because my chores are now done for the day—Thank you, Dad—I’m in a better mood than I’ve been in since I arrived back in Hope Harbor.
It only seems to get brighter when Walker stalks past me, heading to his car and grumbling something about having to go out and that he won’t be back ’til late tonight.
I decide now is the perfect time to do some more snooping. While there may not be anything in Walker’s room, there’s got to be something around here that will tell me what’s going on with the farm.
Which is how, twenty minutes later, Penny and I end up army-crawling through the house.
“Are you sure Walker isn’t going to be back anytime soon?” my sister hisses at me.
“No, he said he’ll be gone for the day.”
Penny stops her forward crawl and goes to turn around, shoving her foot into my face as she spins.
“Ow!” I yelp.
Penny sighs in aggravation. “Why were you so close to me?”
“Can you not yell at me? I think you got dirt in my eye.”
“I don’t have dirty feet.”
“You do, too!” I rub at my eye, sure I’ve got something stuck in it, as Penny harrumphs again.
“I’ll go grab a washcloth.” She goes to stand up, and knowing our mother could be just outside the door and then our cover will be blown, I grab her arm and pull her to the ground.
“What are you doing?” she squeals.
“We’re undercover, remember?” I dip my head against my shoulder, rubbing my eye until I feel like I can see again. I blink a few times and then point at the fireplace. “You check in there. I’ll keep a look out for Walker and Mom.”
Penny huffs before dropping down again and scooching her body across the rustic hardwoods. “Lotta good that’ll do us when you can’t see. I think this is dumb, anyway. Do you really think the man would leave a trail of his nefarious plans if he actually is up to something?”
I throw my hands up in the air. “I don’t know!
But he’s so cagey. He refuses to let me do anything to help with the Daffodil Festival or do any real work around the farm.
It’s almost like he’s trying to put us out of business.
He has freaking blankets covering the tulips, Penny.
You know as well as I do that Daddy never did that.
And all I have managed to find online is that tulip bulbs are hardy and that covering them can actually destroy a crop. It doesn’t make sense.”
I’m still facing the door, watching for any movement in the fields, when I hear Penny’s loud inhale of breath.
I spin around to see her holding up a piece of paper, her eyes moving quickly as she reads.
“Unless, of course, you were right and he is trying to tank the business!” Penny says loudly.
I give up on crawling and lunge toward her, reaching for the letter. “What does it say?”
“Well, it’s addressed to a Mr. Jesse Walker.
” Her eyes cut to mine and she shakes her head.
“It’s an offer to buy the farm. Basically details how this—” She pauses to annunciate the name.
“—Frank Seymour looks forward to hearing if Jesse has discussed this with our mother and that he thinks the offer is fair based on the poor profit margins this year.” Penny’s mouth drops open.
“Do you think that was his plan all along? What if he’s been working with this Frank guy to get Mom to believe he could turn around the farm only to destroy everything at the last minute and make her sell it to him? ”
Something about that feels … far-fetched. “Kind of sounds like a book, Pen. What would be in it for Walker?”
Penny nibbles on her lips. “Think about it, Tally. If the farm is losing money, Mom would have to sell it, which means Walker could buy the land for so much cheaper. And she trusts him, right?”
I nod. As much as I hate to agree, Penny’s not wrong. My mom seems to believe everything Walker says when it comes to the farm.
“And it was addressed to Walker, not Mom.”
That part is hard to argue. And the damn blankets on the flowers. He refuses to tell me why they’re there. It’s concerning. Very concerning.
“I say we take this to Rosie. Get an outsider’s perspective.” Penny blows her breath up and her bangs fan out, clearing her vision. She holds out a hand to help me stand.
I take it and then dust myself off. “Okay, let’s go.”
—
An hour later, I’m seated at Rosie’s bar, waiting with bated breath for her thoughts on the letter.
“Hmm.” Rosie taps her long pink nails against the wooden countertop. There’s a little rose design on her ring finger nail.
I feel like I might jump out of this chair and scream.
Notonly has the letter got me all antsy, but the lack of work this week is driving me batty.
Going from slaving away in tourist-filled hotels, where the kitchen staff is always overworked and never had free time, to this nothingness leaves me itching to move my body. To use my mind. To do something.
“Want me to cover the bar while you read that?” I offer, ready to bounce off my chair if she says yes.
Rosie raises a single brow and then dashes my excitement with a shake of her head. “Stay.”
“Come on. You are killing me here. Do you think Penny’s right? Is Walker up to no good?”
My sister had to go back to her bookstore because she has an actual job, which left me with the task of getting to the bottom of the letter.
Rosie drops the paper and rests her elbows on the bar, leaning in close. “It does seem a bit suspect.”
My stomach sinks. Rosie and Penny are always the more reasonable ones.
Sure, Rosie is over the top sometimes, and she got me into plenty of trouble growing up, but she doesn’t jump to conclusions.
I’m an “act first, ask questions later” type of girl.
Rosie is fearless, but she always assesses the risk first and somehow manages to make the right choice.
The brewery is the perfect example. She saw something she wanted and didn’t let anything stop her from opening it, despite the town’s initial objections.
Penny, on the other hand, has always had her head in the clouds.
A dreamer for which life seems effortless.
Though I suppose I’m seeing cracks in both my best friend’s and my sister’s facades.
Penny doesn’t have her life nearly as put together as she had me believe while I was away.
She’s hurt and jaded. More than I expected her to be.
Penny believes in happy ever afters. Hell, up until Dick the douche, it was basically her entire personality.
I like that she’s suspicious of Walker because it makes me feel less crazy.
But I’m not sure I like that she’s lost that innocent belief that everything will always be okay in the end.
Somehow having my big sister believe that so strongly made it all seem possible.
Made it feel like one day I could also have that.
The bell above the door announces a new customer. My lips curl the minute I see it’s Fletcher Matthews walking in with his dog. “Eleven o’clock on the dot,” I tease Rosie, trying to make her smile.
She grabs a cloth and starts vigorously scrubbing the bar.
“I still don’t get why you hate him so much.
Did you know he’s a widower?” I ask out of the side of my mouth as I watch him greet Rosie’s customers with an easy smile and friendly conversation.
This week, when I had nothing to do, I spent the afternoon with my mother and some of the other Liberty Ladies.
They told me that his wife had died suddenly and that Fletcher has been raising his son alone since the boy was only six months old.
It’s a tragic story. Yet the guy is always smiling.
How does one smile through all that heartache?
Rosie lets out a heavy sigh. “Yup.”
“Rosie,” I chide, sounding an awful lot like my mother.
She rolls her eyes. “Maybe he killed her.” She shrugs her shoulders and throws her hands up in the air. “Maybe he was so bad in bed she decided death was the better option.”
“Oh my God!” I clamp my hand over her mouth right as Fletcher pulls up a stool next to me.
“Hi, Tally. How’s everything on the farm?”
I don’t reply for a second, paralyzed with the fear that he just overheard our conversation.
“Muts should sit outside,” Rosie grumbles even as she grabs a treat from behind the bar and comes around and kneels in front of the dog so he can eat it straight from her palm. “I’m talking about you,” she says, glaring up at Fletcher.
The man flashes her one of his mega-watt smiles. One day I will get the story behind these two.
“Farm is good. Boring. But good,” I mumble.
“Everything ready for the Daffodil Festival?”
I shake my head. “I really don’t think it is.”
Rosie’s head pops up from her position on the floor, and I can feel her glare. She doesn’t want me involving Fletcher in the farm’s business. But he’s our mayor, and the farm is an integral part of the community. If someone is threatening our community, he should know about it.
“All the tulips, which would normally be blooming by now, are still covered in tarps. I’m not sure why Walker hasn’t taken them off.” I shrug my shoulders innocently. “My father never put tarps on his plants.”
Fletcher frowns. Like everyone else, he probably thinks Walker knows exactly what he’s doing, so I change tactic.
“Or maybe Walker didn’t want to ask for help.
The Daffodil Festival is only a few week away, and there is just so much work still to do.
It is his first season doing it all himself.
” I let those words hang there. Wait for Fletcher to take the bait.
“You think he’s too proud to ask for support?” Fletcher asks. This time, I don’t get the feeling he finds the idea preposterous.
“Yes, I do. Maybe I’ll just do the work myself,” I say brightly. “Surprise him.”
“You’re going to uncover all the flowers?” Rosie asks suspiciously as she pushes to a stand and leans against the counter.
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
Rosie’s bun flops around on her head as she laughs at me. “Because it’s a ton of work.”
“I could help,” Fletcher offers, walking straight into my plan.
She lets out a derisive sigh. “Of course you can. Don’t you have a town to run? A child to raise? Somewhere else to be?”
“You’d really help?” I ask hopefully.
“Of course. Hope Harbor is nothing if not helpful,” he says proudly. “I bet I can have a group of us over there this afternoon, and we’ll have it done by dinner.”
“Really?” I ask, hope blossoming inside me.
This is how my dad got stuff done. Everyone in town always lent him a hand because he was the guy who helped everyone else.
He actually engaged in conversation with his neighbors, unlike my roommate.
I can’t wait to see my mother’s and Walker’s faces when they see the farm blooming just like it used to.
And it will be a good test. If Walker’s upset that everything is finally ready for the festival, it will only confirm Penny’s and my suspicion. Either way it’s a win because the farm needs to be ready, and this is step one.
“Really,” he says. “I’ll call Eli.”
Fletcher pulls a phone out of his pocket but just before he walks away, he flashes Rosie a smirk that could kill a woman. “And, by the way, I’m definitely not bad in bed.”
With that, he hits Eli’s number and walks toward the porch, leaving my jaw on the floor and Rosie throwing daggers his way.